


Hold Me Tight

by bluesyturtle



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Dating, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, M/M, Mutant Powers, Mutant Rights, Post-Coital Cuddling, Some Plot, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 17:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2356814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesyturtle/pseuds/bluesyturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Charles and Erik kiss a lot and are generally very into each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Me Tight

**Author's Note:**

> _Don’t know what it means to hold you tight / Being here alone tonight with you / It feels so right now, feels so right now_

“I don’t see why you won’t just come back to bed. The papers will be there in the morning.”

Charles walks two fingers up the line of Erik’s spine and then drags them down in a slow and gentle perusal of flesh. Erik half turns to look at him over his shoulder. He’s thoroughly _sinful_ to behold.

His dark hair has since been mussed by the various ways he pressed his face into the pillow, and the off-white bed sheet clings to his dangerous swoop of supple hip that Erik wants beneath his cheek. One of his free hands is thrown up carelessly near his head on the pillow, and damned if that single unconsciously given image doesn’t explain the whole of Charles’ personality.

He’s simply _there,_ as open and available as can be yet only tangentially vulnerable. The implied strength of those loosely curled fingers and in the steadfast net of his relaxed palm promises durability.

Erik has to stare at him as the thought drifts into his mind and clouds it like a mist. It’s spontaneous, lightning fast moments such as these that make Erik wish Charles _would_ read his mind—just in the few precious seconds before he catches himself thinking it and retreats from the idea altogether.

“You realize you use this same argument in the morning, with some modifications?” Erik muses, voice buzzing in his chest.

Charles skates his fingertips across Erik’s shoulder blade and down the outer and inside planes of his forearm. Erik tangles their fingers together and breathes, warm at his center and cold where his toes brush the wooden floorboards. Charles bites his lip and shifts, pushing his shoulders back into the mattress and wriggling into a lusher, more comfortable position. He stares up at Erik from under the fan of his lashes, releasing his lip from between his teeth at the same time that he squeezes Erik’s hand.

“And they’re always there when I say they’ll be, aren’t they?” His red lips twitch into a small smile that grows. He flicks his gaze lower to Erik’s throat and then to his collar bone, casting a heavier look to Charles’ half-closed eyes. His voice softens, too. “Come back to bed.”

“Charles,” Erik tries, probably in vain, but needing to resist for his peace of mind.

As if the utterance of his name is the incantation of a summoning spell, Charles sits up. His body and his face line up with Erik’s in one slow, rollicking movement. He’s hypnotic, damn him—perfectly, absolutely enticing. His hands come up to frame Erik’s face and he pulls him in for a kiss that waits as it touches.

Erik’s properly woozy when Charles tilts his mouth away and says, “Please stay?”

In spite of himself, Erik laughs. “I need to be able to say ‘no’ to you.”

Something about the delivery of that confession, as much as it is painted informally as an offhanded comment, pushes a current of rigidity through Charles’ formerly lax posture. He sits up straighter and eases the half-hearted manacle of his fingers over Erik’s wrist to the protuberance of his elbow. It’s a very calculated, very self-aware withdrawal. Words coming half a beat too fast, he says, “Oh, of course.”

They’re spoken in earnest and from a place of understanding that Charles never needs his telepathy to reach. Erik wouldn’t apologize for anything like this—the impulse never even crosses his mind, but he does have a wish not to be misunderstood.

Charles perceives that, too, and his tone, accordingly, remains unapologetic but frank. “Yes, Erik, of course.”

It’s on this side of too brisk for Erik’s liking, so he leans back in close. Without taking that kiss that would burn and delight him simultaneously, he holds his face against Charles’ and closes his eyes, remaining ever mindful of where his nose brushes Charles’ cheek and of where clustered strands of his hair break apart against Erik’s temple. Charles breathes in and quietly sighs, shoulders settling back into a sated slouch beneath one firm touch of Erik’s hand.

“If I finish going over it tonight, I’ll be all yours when the morning comes,” he murmurs into the corner of Charles’ mouth—unfair, most likely, but he’s not one to complain when it’s the other way around. Turnabout has been an acceptable outcome between them ever since they met.

Ducking into the turn of skin between Erik’s jaw and his neck, Charles murmurs right back, “If you stay up working all night, you’ll give yourself a headache and you’ll sleep until noon.”

“The sooner I take care of it, the sooner I can rest easy knowing that it’s finished. I don’t want to worry about it anymore.”

“And I don’t want you to either,” Charles whispers. “What if…”

“What?”

It’s not like him to hesitate on the cusp of speaking an idea once he’s introduced its existence. Erik gives him a moment and then asks again. “Charles?”

“I could go over them with you, if you’d like. I know it’s…that this is personal for you, and that it means a lot that you do this by yourself, which you very much deserve, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Hmm? Oh, for…you mean, you…”

“Yes, Charles.” He smiles, the product of insistent warmth biting him behind his ribs. “But first you’ll need clothes because your body is entirely too distracting.”

Charles blinks at him for a moment and then positively _beams_ right before kissing him on the mouth.

Muffled against Charles’ also very distracting lips, Erik protests, “I’m quite serious. Your body is excessively ridiculous.”

The mouth pressed along his laughs at his outright complaint, loudly for one beat and then airy for much longer. Charles nuzzles Erik’s cheek, affectionate even for him on a chilly night. In the back of his mind he can feel the building static of something pressing and powerful that lingers unsaid between them which Charles doesn’t say and that Erik can’t.

Bridging that boundary between patience and stubbornness, Charles offers, in between lovely puffs of giggled laughter, “I’ll just get dressed then, shall I?”

“Yes.”

“Erik?”

“Hmm.”

“ _Erik,_ ” Charles repeats, unwinding his arms from around Erik’s neck and _oh, look,_ Erik’s hands from his scantily concealed hips. “You’re one to bloody talk about _ridiculous_.”

“I don’t have the faintest idea to what you’re referring, Charles,” Erik tells him in a crisp tone that just infuriates Charles if the flustered tint of red smattering his bare chest, throat, and cheeks is anything to go by.

Erik stands and hides how startlingly cold the floor is against his unprotected feet. “Now if you’ll please put on some clothes and help me with these legal documents? You know where to find me when you’re ready.”

That soft, reverent expression flutters over Charles’ features again but disappears before Erik can ruminate over its meaning for too long. He takes one lingering glance at the fragile line between the bed sheet and Charles’ skin, and then he finishes gathering his robe about himself and leaves the room for the darkened hallway that will take him to the luxurious study Charles dismissively calls the library.

\--

Charles takes his time pulling on the silky trousers Erik slid off of him a few short hours ago and shakes out his matching nightshirt. He dawdles here as well, fully appreciating the wrinkles the fabric’s acquired whilst lying in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Bless Erik and his tame savagery. That’s how Charles has come to thinking of it anyway—that subdued brand of intensity that wars ever with respect and self-restraint. A great many contradictions exist in Erik that Charles worships whenever he stumbles upon yet another pair in what appears to be a never ending series.

Those hands, to name one abundantly thrilling example, can soothe and tease just as easily as they snap metal in half. Without even the slightest suggestion of physical touch, his hands are symbolic and restorative. They are rooted as deeply in compassion as they are in suffering, though the trauma of suffering almost always wins out.

Someday, perhaps, that predilection will change and Erik will remember first that he is so much more than the pain that wrought him, rather than remembering it last. These are musings for another night or not at all. Charles has Erik as he is, and whatever challenges arise tomorrow, they have this. They will always have this.

It’s a badly timed thought, really, as Charles has it in the process of walking through the pitch black hallway for the library / study / perhaps-cafeteria-if-one-squints. The irony comes down harder on him as he blindly stubs his toe turning the corner.

_Oh, all right, fine,_ Charles thinks, defiant because he knows the difference between going into something with eyes closed and going into something that blinds by the fact of its being so utterly without light.

He understands it even better as the light from the fireplace erupts into being at the end of the hall and illuminates everything in front of him like a beacon. He looks down and notes with irritation that he’d been all set to stub his toe again upon taking another step forward. He pivots to the right and walks onward, slowing down as he approaches the door, left open enough for him to slip his fingers through and manually push it open.

Charles stretches his hand forward but only grazes the tips of his fingers against the wood, curling them into his palm and contenting himself for the moment to watch Erik scribble notes onto a yellow pad of paper. His brow is smooth but pointed down to indicate concentration and mild irritation. He doesn’t look up from his work, but the door does swing patiently open. The metal doorknob trembles faintly when Charles tips his head in silent observation.

Donning a sly, self-satisfied tone, Erik asks, “Were you honestly going to help, or have you come simply to stare at me?”

“A perfectly even combination of the two,” Charles readily admits as he steps into the overlarge room with shadows from the flames dancing all along the walls and lashing at the high ceilings. “I’ll have you know.”

Erik hums once and does break from his work for just a few seconds to give Charles his best flat look. The corner of his mouth twitches, but it’s convincing overall. Charles bites his lip and rocks on his heels.

Erik looks away right as his smirk shivers into a smile, and in the manner of a person pointing out the obvious, he says, “Well, sit down.”

Charles does and dutifully takes up the neat stack of papers Erik’s sorted for him. It’s elegant, really, the long, long list of legal terms littering the pages and pages and pages beneath his hands. Erik did all of it, typed them, sorted them, prepared this great, massively impressive argument for the first client of his career as a defense attorney—for his first case removed from the shadow of his overbearing predecessor and mentor.

Touching the corner of the first page with a great deal of sentimentality, he catches Erik thinking just outside the barrier of his own mind, _even if he did just come to keep me company…appreciate it anyway…maddening the way he looks, even in those pajamas…_

He can’t really help that he snorts at the last comment. It’s only fair to let his presence, as it exists in that realm, be known to Erik, who blushes.

“Right then—” and clears his throat.

“Yes,” Charles agrees, grinning behind his hand.

After reading for a short time, his mind starts to go blurry on him with the want of sleep, and he takes to staring into the seductive lull of the fire. Perhaps his timing hadn’t been off before. Perhaps the light eradicated the darkness when it did because Erik _is_ clarity and reason—maybe not always _sound_ reason—and certainty. Erik _can_ navigate his way through a darkened hall and light the way for both of them.

Charles hopes Erik can acknowledge to himself that he’s made the right choice: that getting away from someone who hurt him and who exploited him and his talents for years was the right choice, that changing the trajectory of his career was the right choice, that defending others and giving them their voices back as a way of fighting for what he believes in was the right choice, and that allowing Charles the confidence of these decisions was the right choice.

_They_ were and are the right choice. Charles _knows_ with the full force of his being, and he trusts that Erik will see it, too, when he’s ready and if it’s right between them when he is.

“I’m proud of you,” he says, lightly and gasping around the words when his lungs pinch them on the way out.

Erik’s hand stills around his pen, but he keeps writing. Swallowing, he says, “Thank you.”

Charles smiles and takes up a pen of his own, glosses over words and underlines a few that strike him as problematic or circumstantial, and a few times alerts to Erik’s eyes on him, curious and experimental.

Grateful.

He hears the words, _Maybe we can…who could say for sure…_

And then something like an hour later when Charles actually believes himself to be dreaming: _Have you been reading my mind this whole time, Charles?_

“No,” he mumbles, rubbing at his eye and turning a new page. “Don’t be absurd.”

But Erik is smirking with his teeth around the end of his pen when Charles looks up at him, awake for the quick surge of panic through his system.

“I, erm, apologize for that. I know you don’t like…”

Erik leans around the side of the table, aided by the fact that their chairs are already aligned and murmurs, “Hush.”

Haltingly, Charles gets out, “Oh, so, _do_ you—?”

Through that one gentle kiss, Erik whispers in Charles’ mind, _Well, everything in moderation._

Charles smiles and presses into the kiss just enough to alter the warmth into heat.

_I couldn’t agree more._

“Five more minutes with these,” Erik says aloud.

“Yes, love.”

Charles sits back in his chair and pretends the flush in his cheeks is from the fire. If Erik knows better, he does nothing to shatter the illusion. He continues on bent over his papers with the firelight touching his face the way Charles plans to in approximately three and half minutes. Until then, he’s satisfied just to watch him, and Erik is satisfied to let him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics from the Beatles
> 
>  
> 
> This happened because I wanted to write them in bed together. That is the entire reason for this fic.


End file.
